


Songs of the Forest

by ThePlotMurderer



Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Angst, Halloween, M/M, Original work - Freeform, Unrequited Love, gay angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-11 00:17:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16465052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePlotMurderer/pseuds/ThePlotMurderer
Summary: A lonely gay man wanders in the woods, despite his best instincts, and comes across a fearsome figure who's fearsome for very different reasons than the obvious.





	Songs of the Forest

He should have known better than to have gone cruising at a quarter to midnight, what with a killer on the loose and everything. He wasn't stupid, and he was usually very safe. Didn't take any chances, used protection, insisted other guys use protection to...hell, once he'd come off as a Puritanical tart and raised a bit of a scene on some Friday night hookup who _didn't_ have protection.

That's the thing, everyone always expected gays to be promiscuous, but that didn't mean they were all a bunch of whores. He had  _standards_ .

He thought he had standards.

It was so cold too, a fresh autumnal gale sweeping up from the valley, causing the trees to bend and creak against each other, plaintive moans echoing through the moon smoke that shrouded the woods.

He should have worn a heavier jacket. He must look like some grunge era refugee in the ratty jeans and the flannel and this mophead hair he told himself he was going to fix but hadn't gotten around to, because life just has a way of...

_Calm down you stupid queen._ _You're gonna spend the whole night wringing your hands, you might as well just go home._

But he couldn't do that, he knew he couldn't, back to that tiny two room apartment and his  _Melrose Place_ binge and his cruel, fat, _hateful_ cat who, he knew, just knew, was getting more sex  _on the daily_ than he'd gotten in a year.

He should've gotten her spayed, but no, he couldn't do that, she was like his daughter, wasn't she? You don't spay your daughter, what kinda fucking maniac are you? Come on, bitch. Come the fuck  _on_ .

It was so hard. Sitting at home, wanting so badly to get out there, to be a  _part_ of everything, to find somebody. Other gays went to clubs, they went to bars, they swarmed around TVs watching RuPaul and her ardent disciples lip syncing and sashaying like it's the frigging Super Bowl, but not him.

He couldn't, it's not like he wouldn't, he just couldn't. He couldn't _do_ that, he wasn't  _good_ at gay stuff. He wished he was, but he wasn't, so here he is now, patrolling these eldritch woods at the witching hour, looking for some dick to keep him from going crazy.

“Well, hel- _lo_ !” called a voice from somewhere in the mist. He turned and glimpse a figure, leaning lazily against a desiccated poplar, “Bit late to be out on your own, isn't it?”

It was a weird accent. Like an Australian-American transplant trying to sound French. Fuck it, was he really  _that_ desperate that even  _that_ was turning him on?

“Might ask you the same question,” he prompted with an easy shrug, moving deeper into the mist.

“Ooh, cheeky, are we?” the figure pushed forward from the tree, moving into the moonlight, “Just taking a midnight constitutional, as the saying goes. I never get a chance to stretch the legs.”

And legs they were, they must have been at least 75% of his body, long, lean, with knees so pronounced they seemed like daggers against the delicate corduroy (You read that right: corduroy! In  _this_ day and age!) of his leggings. He wore boots too, sturdy alligator skins, polished scarlet and gold, coming up to his knees.

“Well, aren't you a precious little dollop?” his lips, brilliantly red against a starkly white face, curled up into a positively delighted smirk, “What's a nice looking poppet like you doing roaming the hinterlands on this night of nights?”

“I...um...” he had a  _real_ good answer planned to that, really, a great answer, but now he found he couldn't drag his eyes away from the stranger's own. They were brown, but a brown so rich, so warm, they almost appeared gold. His hair fell into his eyes, a wild red mane...not  _ginger_ red, but actually  _red red,_ Miss Scarlet red, Hester Prynne red, red as sin, red as blood, red as wild, hot, sweaty, hair raising...

“Poor thing, it seems I've stolen your voice,” the stranger reached out with one finger, a four inch nail, lacquered the color of garnets, and caressed his lips. He couldn't help but shudder, a dreadfully delightful whimper crossing his lips, “Never fear. I've returned it. Go on, give it a try, whisper a word, whisper a few.”

“I...uh...” he tried again, forcing his lips to form words, “...I'm a little lost, I guess.”

“Isn't everybody?” he sighed, a sound so rich and mournful it made him want to cry and scream and pass out at once, “I think it's important to get lost sometimes. Builds character.” he reached into the pocket of his trailing, ermine fringed leather duster, producing an ornate silver case, embossed with an image of a bird perched on a tree limb, but he couldn't quite be sure what the bird was.

“Care for a ciggy?” he opened the case with merely a stroke of a nail, withdrawing one impossibly long cigarette, which he held between two bony fingers.

“N-no thanks. I don't...I don't smoke.”

“Good boy,” he nodded, holding the cigarette to his lips and exhaling a brilliant plume of smoke, though he couldn't recall seeing the stranger light it, “I'm getting lost too.”

“You don't say?”

“Mhm,” he made a little chuckling noise somewhere in his throat, “Come out into these woods every once in a season, wander around a tetch, clear my head. Though I understand this season is  _particularly_ dangerous, there being a murderer about.”

Yes. The murderer. Funny how he'd forgotten about that.

“And not just any killer,” the stranger cackled delightedly, “A killer of  _fairies_ !” he shuddered, “Lord, makes my flesh  _sizzle_ just to think about it.”

“Yeah...” he gulped, “m-mine too.”

_You should go_ , a little voice in the back of his head told him,  _Before you end up lying in a landfill wrapped in plastic. 'Lonely Gay Bachelor Found Dead, Leaves Behind Smug Cat as Survivor_ .'

But he couldn't, however much he wanted to.

“You too, hm?” the Stranger's gold eyes twinkled with a reptilian cleverness as he asked, in a raspy, delicate whisper, “You're a fairy?”

“Uh...” but try as he might, he couldn't bring himself to lie, to make any denial, “...yes. I. I am. A fairy. I mean...gay.”

“Looks like we're both in danger, then.”

“You're gay?” But, looking back on it, this individual made Liberace look like the Brawny Man, so it shouldn't have come as any measure of surprise.

“Frightfully so.” the Stranger looked out into the black mistiness of the forest. He was quiet for what seemed like ages.

“Oh, I  _live_ for nights like this,” he sighed, “You can almost hear the trees singing.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Of course. You've never heard it? Why, then you've never lived. Come...” and he traced a finger with almost tender care around the edge of his ear, “Listen to the music.”

He wasn't expecting to hear anything, so was not surprised when there was no noise. Just the low rustle of the wind through the trees, the distant bubbling of water in a brook, the call of a bird somewhere over the hills.

Or maybe more than one bird. Two, three, four until, suddenly, the forest seemed alive in their song. But it wasn't birdsong. No, it was guitars, keyboards, drums and cymbals, a voice singing, almost crying, about a love that was slowly killing him, because he knew it would never be returned.

“I...I know this song,” he said at last, feeling his voice tiny and weak in his mouth.

“Why of course you do,” replied the Stranger, inhaling deeply the smoke off his cigarette, “It's  _yours_ .”

“I...I had my first kiss to this.”

He could remember it now. The bar, dimly lit, dusty, not his type of place, but then again, had  _anything_ ever really been his place? Low chatter, shouting, laughing...the sweet as honey smile on the face of the man next to him.  _His_ man, so he'd thought, so he'd desperately wanted to believe, his man forever and ever and all time, because who  _said_ true love was just for the straights, huh?

He couldn't remember the guy's face, not even his name. But he remembered the song.  _His_ song, not  _their_ song. His song, if only because it marked the beginning of his life, and the end of whatever silly fantasy he'd been living before that.

The Stranger was whispering something next to him, words in some language he couldn't understand.

“Did you...did you say something?”

“Oh? No, no...just singing along.”

“That's...uh...not quite how it goes.”

“Maybe not for  _you_ .” he smirked again, “I hear the barcarole, the song of the gondolier, of Venice.”

“You're Italian?”

“I'm everything.” he was quiet and, for the first time tonight, something like a frown seemed to cross his lips, “Oh, I remember nights on the water, the music in the air. So much music. Everything was alive, everything silver and gold. That's where I first fell in love.”

“Is that how it works?” he asked, “You...you hear the music from the first time you fell in love?”

“If only it were that easy. No, precious poppet, you hear the music from the time you realized you could never be loved.”

The music kept on, the darkness seemed to deepen, the world to become less real around him. The Stranger stood there, running one hand tenderly down his cheek.

“You want to cry?” he asked, “Oh, of course you can, I can tell. There's no shame. Cry. It is the one release that's been allowed to us, after all.”

“You...” words came slowly to him, even as he felt the hot tears pricking at his eyes, “you're wrong. I...I can be loved, I...I  _know_ I can. If everyone else can...”

“If everyone else can,” he sighed, “Ah, but we aren't everyone else, are we? Our blessing, our curse.”

“Why?” he demanded, letting the tears come down at last, feeling like he wanted to collapse, to puke, to punch someone all at once, “Why me? I never did anything to anyone, I mind my own business, all I ever wanted was to be less  _lonely_ ...”

“So innocent...” the Stranger smiled sadly, “I envy you. I  _did_ do something to someone. Several somethings, several someones. I thought it would make me feel better."

“It didn't?”

“Oh, no, it did. For a good five minutes before the archbishop's footman stuck a dagger in my throat.” He reached with his free hand up the collar of his jacket, pulling it down just enough so that a faint, splotchy scar was visible, almost luminescent against the pale of his skin.

“You're...” he couldn't find words, “you're  _dead_ ?”

“Well, don't be so miffy about it,” the Stranger smiled, “So are you.”

“Wh-what...” but the Stranger had already reached out and pulled down the collar of his shirt, exposing the raw, red ruin that had been made right in the center of his chest.

“He was messy about it too,” the Stranger whispered, “Spat foul words into your face as he did it. Absolutely uncouth, I really don't see what he was trying to prove.”

“I...” he couldn't form words, “I don't...no, this makes no sense, I couldn't...I...I had  _so much_ to do...”

“So did I. And even more that I could have done, even before it. Not much good thinking about it. That's what the music is there for anyway.”

And again, he heard the song. The sad, yet weirdly triumphant ballad that had so characterized his sad, solitary, adulthood.

“Our lot is an unfair one,” the Stranger continued, “But at least we got out of it while we could. Other people have to wait for decades until Fate decides to give up.” he took another drag on the cigarette, “And besides, there's no climbing to heaven on the cross, as they say. Weeping about it gets you nowhere.”

He produced the silver case again, “Are you sure you don't want a cigarette?”

He looked at it, long and hard, the carved bird on the lid and, as sudden and swift as the wind in his hair, he felt some great, sweeping relief. Not happiness, not at all, but something like a great weight being lifted off his shoulders.

“Y-yes!” he sobbed, falling onto the Stranger with such force he almost tipped over.

“Alright, alright, cripes, don't get so touchy.” but he could feel his hand on his back, patting him awkwardly, “There now, just let it all out. You have all the time in the world to feel sorry for yourself, and even more time than that to get used to it.”

So he kept on crying, even as the Stranger pressed a cigarette of his own into his hands, where it was lit before he'd even brought it to his lips.

It didn't taste like anything, but it smelled like old wood, scotch whiskey, like a fat incontinent cat that, whoopsee daisy, he'd forgotten to feed before he left the apartment.

“My cat's going to die,” he said, in a voice of muted wonder.

“So will we all, poppet,” the Stranger nodded, “so will we all.”

And the music kept playing, only now he imagined he could hear another song mixed into it as well. A deep, rich voice, echoing off the sides of a great canal, proclaiming in the most beautiful language in the world at what a lovely, lovely night it really was.


End file.
